Okay, to be totally honest, I forgot I was hosting. I knew I was hosting on May 20th, but it just seemed unreal that it could ALREADY be May 20th. I’ve definitely taken on too much as of late; my body has been clear about that. It’s a matter of figuring out how to juggle and getting through lots of personal and work stuff. Speaking of work stuff, I’ve got a new newsletter on healthy-ish GF products. Check it out!

Our theme this year is garden grown. If you’re interested in hosting for future weeks, go see Heather at Celiac Family for the details for future weeks!

I’ve been quite pleased with how the garden is growing. It seems that our “guard foxes” deter deer. But the foxes haven’t been seen in a few days, so…deer, if you’re reading this, the dude at the corner of Karmich and 286 has a much nicer garden. Go there instead. Thanks much.

Right now, we’ve got kale, garlic scapes, carrots (only carrot tops right now), and a little bit of stevia which was so kind as to re-seed itself. I’ve never had that happen before, so I’m grateful!

We’ve also had a lot of the perennial herbs (thyme, rosemary, oregano) out in full force.

So…because to be 100% honest, I didn’t plan this week out fully, and if I said I had a firm plan, well…I’d be lying.

Mon

• Chicken with garlic scape pesto

Tues:

• Broccoli in a chickpea/garlic sauce

Weds:

• Roasted cauliflower with…um…something protein-ish

Thurs

• Rosemary salmon (for my birthday!) Yahooza!
• Roasted carrots
• Some sort of chocolaty concoction

Friday:

• Leftovers!

What about everyone else?

 Melissa at Mom’s Plans is balancing delicious and budget. She’s got a tuna casserole on the menu that looks delicious.

Kimberlee of The Peaceful Mom has recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Both her Spicy black beans and her black bean chili caught my eye (mental note: I must be craving black beans!)

 Heather of Celiac Family has some herbs growing in an Aero garden. As usual, she has a pictorial food plan, which I love and my eyes went right to the Pigs in a blanket. I haven’t had those in forever (give or take) and I used to love them. What fun!

Angela of Anglea’s kitchen has rhubarb! I am quite envious; I’ve always wanted some, but supposedly we’re too far south here in VA. She’s also got ribs on the menu that look delish.

Original article: Garden Grown: Menu Plan May 20th

©2013 Gluten Free Goodness. All Rights Reserved.

A few weeks ago, I decided to start a series on Roasting veggies. I’ve roasted cauliflower, asparagus, onions and peppers since days of old, but never ventured beyond that and I’m here to inspire you to avoid such a tragic loss *sob*. Part one was on Roasted Green Beans.

I adore roasted carrots because to me, they’re kinda like candy. Sweet, with yummy caramelized bits=crazy delicious. They’re really easy. The only tedious part is the slicing, (my wrists do not like repetitive motions) and as always, I recommend bribing someone else to do it for you. Although coconut oil generally bothers my tummy, it actually doesn’t for this, for reasons that make no sense to me, but I’m not complaining.

This (non-recipe) recipe is going to Kate of Eat, Recycle, Repeat’s Whole Foods Potluck, which features some great, real eats! I just peeked and it looks like an amazing roundup. It’s also going to Diet Dessert and Dog’s Wellness Weekends.

1.5 lbs carrots, thinly sliced (that’s all that fits on 2 cookie sheets or I’d definitely make more)
2 TBSP coconut oil, melted
coarse sea salt
a pinch of two of mixed herbs–rosemary, thyme, basil (optional)

Roast at 350 for an hour on until perfect. Stir ever 20 min or so.

Original article: Roasting Veggies Part 2: Carrots! Whole Foods Potluck

©2013 Gluten Free Goodness. All Rights Reserved.

Seriously, buddy? It’s Mother’s Day. You gonna make your momma bend over backwards to groom you?

Guess that’s a yes.

Takes a lot of love to look this gorgeous!
This baby looks almost like an adult.

Original article: A (foxy) Mama’s work is never done

©2013 Gluten Free Goodness. All Rights Reserved.

A rare moment of grooming and wuv.

Who’s dat? Foxy baby daddy? or is this momma fox? I’ve never seen an adult who looks like this before, and he’s (she?) isn’t answering questions.

You lookin’ at me?

Need more Foxy? Part 1 is here and Squee Fox from last year is here.

Original article: Foxy Babies Part 2

©2013 Gluten Free Goodness. All Rights Reserved.

Yep, our springtime visitors are here. At first I thought there were two parents like last year, but this is more of the single parent deal. These foxies are much shyer than last year’s family, but they were okay with me out walking this afternoon, which was great. I love having them here, yet I love Shirley’s suggestion–to see them as another one of the beautiful seasons, and savor the times we have with them.

And–the important details:
No, we do not feed the foxes. They are wild animals. We do not touch them, approach them, or anything else along those lines. All of the pics are taken with a zoom lens, and I need a better lens so I can be more of a stalking foxy voyeur!

Original article: Foxy Visitors (many pictures!)

©2013 Gluten Free Goodness. All Rights Reserved.

He has the sweetest little face!

I’m hosting a (free) meditation phone retreat this Saturday 2pm EST with the lovely Ms.Iris of the Daily Dietribe, who will be leading us in a mini art project afterwards. Wanna join us? Email me offline cheryl (at) eharrishome (dot) com

Original article: Oh, baby!

©2013 Gluten Free Goodness. All Rights Reserved.

I have a long standing history of swallowing my voice. Refusing to speak, because speaking means exposing myself, being vulnerable, risking the displeasure of others and some unknown other boogeymen.  So I stay quiet, suck it up and just work harder.

I’m stressed. I came back from a wonderful retreat, and am faced with a “to do” mound (we’re way past list or pile). I’m faced with an influx of insurance denials for clients and really being pissed that the system isn’t supporting people with real, genuine medical needs and now I have to go chase people around to get paid. I always feel guilty doing that.

I’ve (once again) taken on too many projects. And there are ones that I hate to say no to, and people who need help, in areas that don’t fit my interests. I feel obligated to say yes, and know it’s not the right choice for me.

It makes me feel physically ill because I’m put in that same, familiar place: either go along with it and truly devalue myself and my work, or risk conflict. I will be saying something—it’s non-negotiable. I just hate this running theme where I am frantically paddling to keep up and so very afraid of upsetting others.

Please don’t get me wrong—all of these projects are things I’ve taken on out of love. They’re things that I believe in and care about.

And yet they’re still missing the most important part.

Self-love. Self-worth. The non-negotiable ability to stand strong and let things bounce around however they will.

The ability to say no, fully understanding that it will disappoint others, and accepting that, too.

The funniest part is that on some goofy level I think that doing the polite thing is generous, but that can’t be further from the truth. Not only is it taking away from ME and my life, but I imagine it’s siphoning my energy from other areas and (at this moment) causing me bitterness.

When I give too much out of fear, I cheat myself, and I cheat everyone around me.

At least the maximum bullshit point is a great catalyst for change. The more still I am when I’m meditating, the more motivated I become to bring that peace into daily life, and the less willing I am to tolerate the everyday ways I sell myself short.

Original article: Finding a Voice

©2013 Gluten Free Goodness. All Rights Reserved.

I didn’t like green beans as a kid. They were overcooked, yucky looking and generally from a can. No wonder I wasn’t a fan. That changed at the Farmer’s Market a few years ago. Now that I’m always seeing the big bags with the ends pre-chopped at the store, it’s made them much more accessible. As a bonus, I tend to go for a 20-25 min evening walk, so if I put them in before I go, they’re just about perfect when I walk in the door, no stirring necessary.

LOVE green beans? Yes, you can do 2 lbs at once, just use 2 cookie sheets and change the oven position in the middle.

1 lb of string beans/green beans
2-3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt

1 small handful almonds, hazelnuts or brazilnuts, chopped
Squeeze of lemon

Preheat the oven to 350. Toss the green beans with olive oil and sea salt, and spread them on a lined cookie sheet. Bake for ~22-25 min (they should be browning on the bottom). Stir, add in the nuts, roast 5 min more. Give a good squeeze of lemon, add salt and pepper if necessary and enjoy!

I’m adding this to Iris’ 5 ingredient Mondays and Ricki’s Wellness Weekends.

Original article: Roasted veggies Part 1—Green Beans

©2013 Gluten Free Goodness. All Rights Reserved.

But I have been making a gob of fun stuff:

  Normal people say “thank you”. Bakers say, hey, why don’t I make cookies, brittle and choc covered orange slices and send them as a gift? Pretty please tell me I’m not the only one. So I made Double Choc Cherry Cookies from The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook,  Pecan and Cacao Nib brittle and Choc dipped candied orange peels, because the recipient is gluten, dairy and egg free.

Paleo, vegan almond crackers from Carrie’s new cookbook, the Everything Gluten-Free Baking Cookbook which will be out soon. I really, really like these. They’re really rich, satisfying and delicious.

Shirley’s Crustless Apple Pie was absolutely fantastic. I made it with a chia egg, less oil and maple sugar and it was simply delicious. The topping was like buttah–rich, delicious and EASY. I brought it to a family gathering and the next I knew, my aunt was handing me an empty pie plate. I had been angling for a second piece…alas.

Shirley’s Crustless Chocolate Fudge AKA Clark Kent Pie was also in the lineup. As you’ll notice, I do have a pathological need to deviate from recipes. And I couldn’t find the 1/4 cup measure, so I used 1/3 cup cocoa and adding in 1TBSP of liquor. It worked with Irish creme and with Frangelico…so my bet it would work with whatever booze de jour you’d enjoy. But Shirley’s warning about it being so rich you only need a tiny piece? Not so much. Mr. Dude was rather efficient at polishing off a big chunk of the pie with great gusto.

And Ooh Ooh looky here! I made my first (successful) batch of sauerkraut! Okay, I understand that’s easy to do. But I have an extreme phobia of mold (and that isn’t in any way, shape or form an exaggeration. Mold sends me screaming and I tend to drop the moldy thing in question. My poor college roommate and E have been so patient with me.) So whenever I’d read a recipe and they’d say, don’t worry, mold is normal, just scoop it out, my eyes would bug out of my head and that would be it. But I finally did it. The first batch went terribly wrong, but this was delish!

Original article: A romp through my kitchen…

©2013 Gluten Free Goodness. All Rights Reserved.

And yet…I truly believe that the new genetically engineered salmon that are up for approval by the FDA are the wrong way to go.

Just like with GM crops, there hasn’t been formal study of long term impacts on humans. And there are a lot of people with very strong opinions about GM foods overall. But just for fun let’s just table the debate over the health consequences of GMOs for a minute, and consider the rest.

These GM salmon grow many times faster than regular salmon, which will certainly have an impact on their environment because, well, they’re eating much more. Gotta love the environmental impact assessment…essentially, there isn’t one. These fishies are set to be grown in Canada and Panama. And in their infinite wisdom, FDA wrote:

As the proposed action would only allow production and grow-out of AquAdvantage Salmon at facilities outside of the United States, the areas of the local surrounding environments that are most likely to be affected by the action lie largely within the sovereign authority of other countries (i.e., Canada and Panama). Because NEPA does not require an analysis of environmental effects in foreign sovereign countries, effects on the local environments of Canada and Panama have not been considered and evaluated in this draft except insofar as is was necessary to do so in order to determine whether there would be significant effects on the environment of the United States due to the origination of exposure pathways from the production and grow-out facilities in Canada and Panama.

Yep…since it’s not happening in the U.S., we don’t have to figure in the environmental concerns of local ecosystems. Because our environment is so very smart, there’s an imaginary line and net between the U.S. and everywhere else that keeps us insulated and safe.

*sigh*

And, one thing keeps kicking around in my head. To keep the GM fish them under control, all these GM salmon will be female and kept away from normal fish.

The FDA writes:

“…there are no specific data demonstrating that triploid AquAdvantage Salmon are indeed sterile, that is, incapable of producing viable offspring; however, as discussed below, there are several reasons why this is believed to be the case.”

And they do go through a bunch of scenario of why, on paper, this shouldn’t be a problem.

Great. Except we’ve already seen that frogs can change gender when exposed to certain pesticides.  To be totally clear, that obviously doesn’t mean the same thing will happen here, and yet it also means that we can’t know for sure how something will play out, if the fish escape or if there’s vandalism. Even if an accident happened once, normal salmon could well be a thing of the past.

This is a good read from Marion Nestle

Am I the only one bothered by this? Hopefully not. The FDA has a comment period that is open until April 26^th

There are also a bunch of sites with petitions so you can just sign your name rather than write something in depth.

I usually only write about health news and concerns on my other website and keep this for recipes and such, but I feel it’s important for people to be aware.

Original article: Genetically Modified Salmon? Oy.

©2013 Gluten Free Goodness. All Rights Reserved.